Familiar Sketches
by Pinklily8
Summary: Puck has lived for four thousand years, and yet no one has ever shook him quite like Grimms, and specifically Sabrina Grimm. She had a power that his mother would have killed for, the power to change the way he thought. But it was more than that. Sabrina changed the very way he breathed.


Puck was hiding again. What with Oberon going on a veritable rampage, you can't really blame him. He was brooding in one of his usual spots that Mustardseed hadn't found yet. This particular perch in the ceiling rafters gave him a great opportunity for snooping.

Which was exactly how he'd found out that Oberon had given him an arranged marriage. But that had been days ago, and so far Oberon hadn't found him so that he could formally tell the crown prince.

Puck scowled. He didn't want to marry anybody! He planned to stay young for the rest of eternity. No one would-no _could_ -possibly change his mind on that. Any part of him that had ever considered what it would be like to be older (and perhaps in love?) he had squashed long ago.

"A human! A Grimm, I heard." Puck absently listened to the gossip of two servants beneath him.

"A descendant of Wilhelm?" came the reply.

"No, apparently she was married into the line. Seemed like she wanted to give Oberon and Titania a piece of her mind." The two laughed and Puck perked up.

"When are they meeting?" said the uninformed one asked excitedly, glad that something interesting was finally happening.

"Right now, she just stormed on through the bar and demanded her presence be admitted. Apparently she already had connections with Oz."

Puck didn't stay for the rest of their conversation, because he was already moving through the wooden beams to get to the royal chambers, specifically his father's office.

Long before he arrived, he could hear loud shouts. He tucked himself into a hidden nook where he could see slivers of their faces. To Puck's glee, Oberon was very red.

"Changes?" he seethed, glaring at a woman with dark hair who Puck could only see the back of.

"Yes, Oberon. This is a new era..." she went on to explain several things that Puck only half-listened to, things about working together, building a true community. Puck watched as Oberon started to look cowed, unable to compete with this woman's focused and hidden ferocity.

"I already have many connections within the Everafter community, and many of them back up my visions. We just need your seal of approval." She wrapped up her speech eloquently, and even Puck found himself gravitating to the strange power this woman had.

"Veronica," his father sighed, probably about to give some weak counter argument, but Puck was already leaving.

Veronica, huh? Puck wasn't sure if it was the air of authority surrounding her, or that she'd talked down Oberon, but he liked this lady.

.-.-.-.

It was getting harder and harder to slip away from his Oberon. A week and a half of dancing around his family was taking its' toll. Puck only returned to Faerie now to nab food and some light money to feed himself.

He was in a servant dining room at that moment, eating alone.

Alone. That was something he did rather well as of late. He controlled the blade in his emotions, but loneliness twisted the knife, laughing at his pain.

"You're Puck, aren't you?"

Puck choked on his bite, coughing and spluttering. His first instinct was to flee, but he recognized this voice. Once he got a grasp on himself, he returned her phrase mockingly.

"You're Veronica, aren't you?"

He turned to the woman, and was surprised by what he saw. He had imagined that the dark haired person would have resembled a troll to disgruntle Oberon so much. But instead of hideousness, she looked quite pretty. She laughed and took a seat next to him.

"I've heard a lot about you."

He huffed and turned away. "Then I'm sure that you don't want to talk to me for much longer."

Veronica shook her head calmly. "No, actually. I don't like letting other people's opinions clouding my own."

There was a soft noise, and he started when he looked at the woman again. She had been holding a small baby the whole time. He wasn't sure how he'd missed it.

Veronica saw him staring and smiled. "This is Sabrina, do you want to hold her?"

He blinked at her for a moment, then laughed. "Haven't you heard all the stories? Aren't you worried that I'd drop your child?"

Veronica shook her head again. "You've seemed perfectly civil in all of the time I've seen you. Although I must admit that spying on your father's meetings is a bit rude."

Puck gaped at her. How did she know that?

She grinned at his expression, then smiled softly at her baby.

"I'm a mother now, it's my job to know everything." This time when she offered her child for him to hold, he uncertainly held his arms around the tiny life.

Sabrina was her name, Veronica had said. A little tuft of blonde hair was growing from her head, and she had big blue eyes. The child looked at him, and her eyes focused for a second in an odd sort of intelligence, but it faded quickly. The baby pressed against his chest and napped.

Veronica laughed at Puck's frazzled and flustered expression.

"That's interesting. Sabrina barely lets anyone new hold her, she outright bawled when her father held her the first few times." Puck scowled as he thought about this innocent's father, because it made him think of his own. He couldn't help but hope that her parents did more for her than his had ever done for him. Veronica got a thoughtful look on her face, then grinned.

"Here's my verdict, I think you're great Puck, no matter what your crotchety father says about you." Her words and the young child's acceptance sent a flutter of an unknown emotion through him.

Gratitude?

No, definitely not. The Trickster King does not feel gratitude.

But let's pretend for a moment that he did.

Puck looked once more at the slumbering baby-Sabrina. Somehow fitting even though she was so young. So untainted, untouched. He could feel her tiny heart beating strongly through his new green hoodie.

He carefully returned Sabrina to her mother, but she cried out, outraged that she'd been moved from her sleeping place. Her mother whispered something soft, and Sabrina calmed, falling back asleep.

"Well," Veronica said with a yawn, "I'm going to go home for the day. It was nice meeting you, Puck." He now noticed how dark circles framed her eyes. She was almost to the door when Puck shot up, calling after her.

"Will you come back?" he bit his tongue, embarrassed by how hopeful he sounded. Veronica smiled softly at him.

"Of course. I'll be around if you ever need someone to talk to." His drilled response was that he didn't need someone to talk to, but Veronica and her daughter were already gone before her could say anything else.

He sat back on his chair, smiling at the thought of Veronica's kindness, and the wonder of life that was little Sabrina Grimm.

He heard the door open and he manged to keep smiling right up to the moment that Oberon's hand clasped uncomfortably onto his shoulder.

"Son, we need to talk."

.-.-.-.

His first ten years in Ferryport Landing weren't his best, but it certainly wasn't the worst time in his long life. He still wore the clothes that he'd been wearing that day, and he couldn't find it in himself to discard those faithful scraps of cloth like his father had tossed him aside.

He had made his own kingdom from the salvaged trash that others had deemed unnecessary.

Meeting the old lady had been strange, because it wasn't very often that people wanted to care for him or showed such open goodness. He hadn't even known that kindness like that existed. He started to feel a distinct fondness for her, despite his best efforts to appear detached.

But then she started talking about granddaughters. Her own flesh and blood would be coming. He drifted away, cut deeply. Would even her kindness fade when she had someone worthwhile to spend it on?

He saw the girls, the older one suspicious of the old lady's kindness just like he had been.

He hadn't recognized her for who she was at first, but when Sabrina Grimm dropped him into his own pool he was tempted to tell her that once it was he who had had the power to drop her. (Although he'd never have done that, Veronica surely would have killed him.)

However, he didn't say a word about their past meeting and he followed this girl and her sister, unsure why he wanted to help them. Perhaps it was because Sabrina was no longer untainted or untouched, and it made him angry, strange as it was.

When he saw her grief at seeing her parents and being able to nothing about it, he comforted her- _held_ her again in a way-before his rage set in. What was it like to have parents like that, parents that one would cry over if you couldn't find them? So he drew on her face to hide what he felt.

And yet.

And yet he kissed her with that sharpie on her face, and he was so confused at his own actions that he was actually quite glad that she punched him in the gut.

Puck found it rather sad and unsurprising that he trusted Sabrina more than his own mother, or even his brother. What surprised him more was that her fairy cocoon chose him. They never told her because it hadn't seemed important to them, but it shook him.

Soon he once again he looked Veronica Grimm in the face, awake, with only her daughter to bridge the gap. There was a tacit agreement of silence, but for who?

More tales passed them, a roiling future, a war, a dance, a marriage, and so many other moments. But one that Puck rather liked was this one:

"We are never having another kid, Puck." Sabrina groaned, tired and spent. But Puck was grinning, and it was contagious as they gazed upon their daughter. Alison was the name she wanted, but 'The Destroyer' was his humble suggestion.

"Here," his wife said tenderly, holding Alison towards him. He held the tiny life in his arms, and a strong heart beat through to his.

Puck could feel a familiar sketch drawn eloquently by a master's pen, and he wondered at the forever he saw when he looked at his wife and their ( _their_!) daughter.

And he forgave his father in that moment for banishing him.

For he was in the place he wanted to be.

 **.-.-.-.**

 **Yes this happened. This is totally canon in my mind because even though there wasn't much time between Puck's banishment and Veronica's arrival, there was a small window and Oz said that Veronica took baby Sabrina to work. So yeah. This happened.**


End file.
